Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler Review

The striking red and black theme of Thermaltake’s Frio Advanced is instantly evident. Removing the pair of 13cm fans reveals a dense aluminium fin array which features an air pressure enhancing groove in its design.

The bird’s eye and side-on views show the true size of this single tower cooler; it’s huge! Make sure you have a large case and plenty of clearance by means of low profile RAM and VRM heatsinks if you want this beast to fit. The red removable plastic top cover acts as a hold-down method for the pair of fans and their attachment frames to slot into.

Thermaltake’s 130mm PLA12025S12HH-LV fans use a design which makes use of 120mm mounting holes. The designers bent each side of the frame outwards by a few millimetres to accommodate the 130mm fan in the ‘120mm’ sized design.

The inventively designed fan mounting method uses a simple plastic frame as the ‘middle-man’ between fan and heatsink. A standard 120mm sized fan is simply clipped to the plastic frame before the frame is clipped on to the heatsink and held securely via the aforementioned red, plastic hold-down cover on the summit of the heatsink and a specific channel in the fin array.

The plastic frame mounting method is surprisingly secure and doesn’t have any obvious issues apart from the limited fan compatibility. The wider-than-standard fan frames on our Scythe AP-15 Gentle Typhoon fans made it impossible for them to be attached securely, by the narrowest of margins.

A high-quality finish on the Frio Advanced’s 5 6mm heatpipes of forming the H.D.T. designed base should ensure optimal contact between the heatsink’s base and the CPU’s heatspreader. The 5 heatpipes form a zigzag shape as they enter the aluminium fin array which should ensure an even distribution of the removed heat for it to be dissipated efficiently.

The pressure enhancing groove which is evident on each of the heatsink’s faces is easily noticeable, but isn’t as deep as some other designs we have encountered in the likes of Xigmatek’s Gaia SD1283. Nevertheless, when paired with a couple of 2,000 RPM fans, we are sure that there will be ample air pressure on offer to penetrate the dense aluminium fin array.